The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will hold its general congress over the weekend. Deniz Baykal is once again a candidate for the party’s leadership and appears to not have a viable challenger so far.
While Baykal’s election for another term will not be a surprise, the CHP’s political identity is being questioned by CHP cadres themselves.
As a party founded by Atatürk, the CHP has always enjoyed a privileged position in Turkish politics. It governed the country under single-party rule until 1950. For almost three decades, the CHP and the Turkish state were one and the same thing. CHP politicians were also the appointed state officials. The party’s political program was the same as that of the state. Its ideology was also the ideology of the Turkish state. The CHP was able to choose and appoint anyone it wanted to numerous public positions, from the simplest blue-collar jobs to the highest positions of the military and the judiciary. In short, the CHP was the state and defending the CHP meant defending the state.
During the CHP’s single-party rule, secularism (laiklik) was implemented not as a party program, but as the state ideology. Secularism became a convenient way of opening up and securing a political space for the CHP, regardless of the political circumstances and economic conditions in the country. CHP officials always accused their political opponents of being anti-secularist, that is, opposed to the CHP and the state ideology. The word ‘irtica’ in Turkish, which literally means “regression,” (i.e., going back to pre-modern times) became a powerful buzzword to corner anyone who had the guts to take a position against the CHP and its policies. Most of the political parties in modern Turkish history, including the Liberal Republican Party, founded by Fethi Okyar on the order of Atatürk himself, were closed down on charges of violating secularism.
While the CHP always fought its political opponents with its version of secularism, it failed to deliver on simple political issues. The CHP claims to be a social democratic party, but none of the CHP governments have pursued policies that can be called social democratic. While in the opposition, the CHP has hardly behaved like a left part, a title it claims for itself as a member of Socialist International. Because of the CHP’s statist policies, Socialist International has previously considered expelling the party.
The CHP’s ideological language is no different today than it was in the 1930s and ’40s. But the Turkish society has changed. The anti-CHP right conservative parties transformed Turkish society in ways that were unimaginable for the CHP. From Menderes and Demirel to Özal and Erdoğan, conservative leaders brought the Turkish periphery to the political center. They transformed their traditional, conservative and religious constituency from closed circles to politically active and economically vibrant communities.
Under Özal, Turkish conservatism opened itself up to the world. That’s why the conservative base of Turkish society became the main actors of the age of globalization in Turkey. Long before the Republican elites, they opened themselves up to the ideas and practice of democracy, pluralism, multiculturalism, the free market, competition, international trade, civil society organizations, humanitarian aid organizations, women’s organizations and so on. The result is a much more dynamic Turkish right than the CHP’s official ideology of secularism.
Under the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) rule, Turkish conservatism is still being transformed. By thrusting themselves into the world of the free market, global trade, media, fashion and a host of other new terrains, the Turkish right is becoming more “secular” in the original sense of the term: They are becoming more visible and active in public life, claiming a secure space for themselves and transforming the world with them.
A modern and “wordly” conservatism is in the air in Turkey and the CHP’s crude di